Like the scent of rain riding the breeze before a storm, the signs of approaching autumn come softly. A few leaves loosen their hold and dance downward to rest on grass still green with summer moisture. Geese gather in small flocks and skirt from pond to pond, spreading the word. Above meadows alive with cricket song, the sky reveals a deeper blue, and on wooded walks a familiar scent teases memories from every corner. It recalls untold picnics on a porch with a glass of milk and a favorite sandwich, and tiny glasses in a silver tray of monthly communion. It conjures a woman with work-worn hands, stirring a huge pot of boiling nectar that fills a farmhouse kitchen with the sweetest thing ever spread on a homemade yeast roll.
I have read somewhere that fragrance is the strongest human memory, preverbal and powerful in its direct connection to emotions. On a recent walk with my adult son, I came to an abrupt halt in the middle of a gravel trail that winds through a nearby park, and pounced upon a single purple jewel recently fallen from above. “What is it?” he said, probably assuming someone before us had dropped a bracelet or a ring. I held it out before him in my palm, a single wild muscadine grown fat with summer’s nurture. Wet with dew, it bore a light crust of sand. “You’re not going to eat that,” he said, and so I determined I would, and he as well. They have not come in fully, the muscadines, but I managed to gather a handful, and at home, we rinsed them clean under the faucet and ate them together. Piercing the skin of a wild muscadine is like chewing nice soft shoe leather, and once you spit out the seed, there isn’t much but a gummy nugget of edible material. But the flavor! And anyone worth their southern salt knows that eating them is not the point. Ah, the rewards of a morning gathering, cleaning, boiling, mashing and straining.
At the time I moved to Georgia, my grandparents cultivated over an acre of muscadine vines. Their vineyard bore the same brownish purple globes of transcendent joy that drop from the wild tangles climbing heavenward in a clinging embrace around the taller trees, whose feet stand in forest shadow, but whose arms are raised into the sunlight where the grape leaves find all the warmth they need. While my grandparents trained their vines at a convenient height, most wild grapes remain invisible in the canopy until they grow heavy and fall to the path like pennies from heaven. There they are gathered by birds, deer, feral pigs and nostalgic humans. But even before they fall, they announce their ripening presence in late August and early September, imbuing the surrounding air with a fragrance so sweet I pause, breathe deeply, and am at my grandmother’s table once again, opening a steaming yeast roll hot from her oven, lathering it with butter churned that morning, and spreading it with a sweet, tart flavor so powerful my palate sings spirit-filled hymns of praise.
Last year, wandering through a valley of decision, varying my path between uncertainty and calling, the scent of grapes at hand broke through my melancholic ruminations. I came to my senses, heeding the call, “Carpe diem!” and grabbed a rusting camp kettle from my garden, with which to gather glory.
Hours of walking, stooping and stealing away hidden treasure from the first fallen leaves had me humming Keith Urban’s tune, and having to agree that “Ain't it funny how the best days of my life, was all that wasted time.” The bounty covered my countertop and yielded 15 cups of juice. My husband Pete returned from an early-season bow hunt in the midst of my preparations, jumping right in to lend a hand. He climbed into the garage attic to retrieve the well-loved pressure canner, something he used alongside his own mother a lifetime ago. I pulled up a jam recipe on my tablet, and we stirred, sterilized jars, squeezed and sampled, forgetting our worries and demands and having the kind of fun which only that level of kitchen mess can produce.
Three boxes of Sure-Jell and twelve cups of sugar later, there were ten pints and three quart-size jars of muscadine jam popping and sealing on the counter top while we devoured the “leftovers,” holding wooden spoons for each other to lick clean. The smell of heady wine, soft rain and sticky childhood memories settled in our home and lingered. It was a day to remember, in which we shared simple magic, and preserved something grown on high, untouched; the sweetest thing on which to feed through winter days, and share with those whom we love and break bread.
Today, when I walk into the woods, I will stop, and stand still. Closing my eyes, I will breathe deeply, searching for the certainty of the seasons, memories of love’s labors that sustain, and for the fragrance of fall.
